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Sunday, July 12, 2015

Top 10 Best Things About iOS 9

Back on June 8th, Apple announced its latest and greatest mobile operating system at its annual WWDC event then released the beta version to developers. And now, anyone can "try it out" with the recent release of their public beta program. But to be honest, if you already have iOS 8.4 and the new Apple Music app, you have the most exciting new feature launching this year. Siri 2.0 is still not up to par with Google Now. And there's no major design overhaul like iOS 7. So unless one of these ten things excite you, you might as well just wait. However, it's much less buggy than past versions of iOS betas -- so there is that.

Here are the ten (not so-exciting yet) best things about iOS 9:

Navigation Suggestions: iOS 9's Maps app has built-in navigation suggestions to let you know about a better/faster way to get to your destination.

New Universal Search Results: The new universal search in iOS 9 has many more suggestions to help you find what you're looking for -- including websites, Wikipedia entries, movie showtimes, reminders, notes, documents, music, videos and more!

More Organized Photo Album: Updates to the Photos app in iOS 9 include new albums for all of your selfies and screenshots (just like for panoramas and videos last year).

New Multitasking Features: iOS 9 boasts lots of cool new multitasking features (especially on the new iPads i.e. picture-in-picture videos) but the iPhone also gets a cool new design (see below) and a nice new "Back to..." feature in the top left of every app when you jump from one app to another -- making it stupid simple to get back to what you were doing after you answer a text or look at a Facebook notification.

Lowercase Keyboard: This is one of those "no-dugh" features you won't believe took this long to come to fruition. Now, when typing on the keyboard in iOS 9 you'll whether that highlighted shift key arrow-up button means you're currently in ALL CAPS mode or lowercase mode because the letters on the keyboard will either be in ALL CAPS or lowercase.

News App: The new News app in iOS 9 still needs some work (by far the most buggy new feature in this release) but once it is complete it should put LinkedIn's Pulse app and other RSS feed reader apps out of business.

Passbook renamed Wallet: I always hated the name of the Passbook app -- so a rename alone is worth noting -- but the new app also has some new features including the ability to scan in your loyalty rewards program cards (i.e. Dick's Scorecard, Target Cartwheel, AMC Stubs, Giant Eagle Advantage, etc.)

Notes App: The new Notes app has tons of handy new ways to quickly jot down notes including an easy checklist creator and the ability to sketch things with your finger.

Settings Search: I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to someone how to find something in settings i.e. Go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > iCloud > Manage Storage. Now you can just search for it!

Low Power Mode: And lastly, the new "Low Power Mode" in iOS 9 gives the ability to squeeze every last bit of power left in your battery in those desperate situations.

Did I forget something in iOS 9 that you think is really cool? Add it in the comments below: